The behaviour of producer prices: some evidence from the French PPI micro data

This paper provides some new empirical features on price setting behaviour for French producers using micro data underlying the producer and business-services price indices over the period 1994-2005. Some crucial methodological issues on the collection of producer prices are raised. Then, the main features of producers' price setting are presented: producer prices are modified quite frequently and by small amounts. A high heterogeneity across sectors is also observed: business-services prices change less often than industrial producer prices. The data lend some support to predictions of both time- and state-dependence models: Taylor contracts are not unusual but prices also respond to the changes in the firm's economic conditions. Nevertheless, time-dependent models are shown to be the most relevant theories to explain the producer price rigidity. JEL Classification: E31, D43, L11, L16frequency of price change, price duration, Price stickiness, producer price index

Restaurant Prices and the Minimum Wage

We examine the effect of the minimum wage on restaurant prices. We contribute to both the study of economic impact of the minimum wage and to the micro patterns of price stickiness. For that purpose, we use a unique dataset of individual price quotes collected to calculate the Consumer Price Index in France and we estimate a price rigidity model based on a flexible (S; s) rule. We find a positive and significant impact of the minimum wage on prices. The effect of the minimum wage on prices is however very protracted. The aggregate impact estimated with our model takes more than a year to fully pass through to retail prices.price stickiness, minimum wage, inflation, restaurant prices

RESTAURANT PRICES AND THE MINIMUM WAGE

We examine the effect of the minimum wage on restaurant prices. For that purpose, we estimate a price rigidity model by exploiting a unique data set of individual price quotes used to calculate the Consumer Price Index in France. We …find a positive and signifi…cant impact of the minimum wage on prices. We obtain that the effect of the minimum wage on prices is very protracted. The aggregate impact estimated with our model takes more than a year to fully pass through to retail prices.Price stickiness, minimum wage, inflation, restaurant prices, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization,

L'ajustement microéconomique des prix des carburants en France

En utilisant des millions de relevés individuels de prix entre 2007 et 2009, cette étude décrit plusieurs faits stylisés sur l’ajustement des prix des carburants en France : ils changent en moyenne une fois par semaine ; ils sont plus souvent modifiés le mardi et le vendredi ; la concurrence accroît la fréquence des changements de prix ; la distribution des tailles de changements de prix présente peu de changements inférieurs à 2% ; taille des changements de prix et durée des prix sont corrélées ; l’inflation des prix des carburants est surtout déterminée par la part relative des stations-service augmentant ou baissant leur prix. Les modèles de coût d’ajustement incluant des rigidités informationnelles reproduisent le mieux ces faits stylisés

Adaptive estimation in the nonparametric random coefficients binary choice model by needlet thresholding

In the random coefficients binary choice model, a binary variable equals 1 iff an index $X^\top\beta$ is positive.The vectors $X$ and $\beta$ are independent and belong to the sphere $\mathbb{S}^{d-1}$ in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$.We prove lower bounds on the minimax risk for estimation of the density $f\_{\beta}$ over Besov bodies where the loss is a power of the $L^p(\mathbb{S}^{d-1})$ norm for $1\le p\le \infty$. We show that a hard thresholding estimator based on a needlet expansion with data-driven thresholds achieves these lower bounds up to logarithmic factors

Trade, wages, and collective bargaining

Collective bargaining modify the impact of exports and imports on wages? In a seminal paper, Calmfors and Driffill (1988) show that, in firms covered by firm‑level wage agreements, wages are better linked to productivity than in firms covered by industry‑level agreements. Gürtzgen (2009) lends support to these predictions using data for German manufacturing firms. Our study looks at data from individual French firms on wages, exports/imports and collective bargaining over the period 2005‑2009. Our sample comprises more than 8,000 firms (among the largest French exporters/importers) which account for over two thirds of French exports and imports of manufactured goods. Using micro‑econometric techniques, we examine two questions: (i) do exporting and offshoring lead to higher wages and, if so, is the effect heterogeneous across workers? (ii) to what extent does wage bargaining shape the effect of trade on wages? International trade favours exports but also creates opportunities for offshoring. This Rue de la Banque studies the impact of firm-level trade activities on wages, as well as the role of collective bargaining. Both exports and offshoring have a positive impact on wages, but exports increase wages for all occupational categories, while the impact of an increase in offshoring is stronger for executives. The elasticity of wages with respect to exports and offshoring is positive and is higher for firms with collective bargaining. However, we find that collective bargaining reduces only moderately wage inequalities induced by offshoring

Institutional features of wage bargaining in 23 European countries, the US and Japan

This paper presents information on wage bargaining institutions, collected using a standardised questionnaire. Our data provide information from 1995 and 2006, for four sectors of activity and the aggregate economy, considering 23 European countries, plus the US and Japan. Main findings include a high degree of regulation in wage setting in most countries. Although union membership is low in many countries, union coverage is high and almost all countries also have some form of national minimum wage. Most countries negotiate wages on several levels, the sectoral level still being the most dominant, with an increasingly important role for bargaining at the firm level. The average length of collective bargaining agreements is found to lie between one and three years. Most agreements are strongly driven by developments in prices and eleven countries have some form of indexation mechanism which affects wages. Cluster analysis identifies three country groupings of wage-setting institutions. JEL Classification: J31, J38, J51, J58cluster analysis, indexation, institutions, trade union membership, wage bargaining

Understanding Wage Floor Setting in Industry-Level Agreements: Evidence from France

This paper examines empirically how industry-level wage floors are set in French industry-level wage agreements and how the national minimum wage (NMW) interacts with industry-level wage bargaining. For this, we use a unique dataset containing about 50,000 occupation-specific wage floors in 365 French industries over the period 2007-2015. We find that the NMW has a significant impact on the seasonality and on the timing of the wage bargaining process. Inflation, past sectoral wage increases and real NMW increases are the main drivers of wage floor adjustments; elasticities of wage floors with respect to these macro variables are 0.6, 0.4 and 0.2 respectively. Wage floor elasticities to inflation and to the NMW both decrease along the wage floor distribution but are still positive for all levels of wage floors

More facts about prices: France before and during the Great Recession

Using micro price data, we document new facts on price rigidity in France: (i) each month 20.1% of prices are changed, which compares with 24.1% in the United States. Excluding sales, however, the fraction of prices modified each month is about the same in France and in the United States (around 17%); (ii) the distribution of price changes is quite dispersed; (iii) the frequencies of price increases and decreases contribute a lot to inflation variations, and price increases are more frequent in January even when sales are excluded; (iv) sales contribute significantly to the volatility of inflation but are much less sensitive to macroeconomic fluctuations than regular price changes; (v) during the Great Recession patterns of price adjustment were only slightly modified.A partir de données individuelles de prix couvrant la crise de 2008-2009, nous présentons des nouveaux faits sur la rigidité des prix en France: (i) chaque mois, 20.1% des prix sont modifiés contre 24.1% aux Etats-Unis. Quand les soldes sont exclus, la fréquence de changements de prix est toutefois semblable en France et aux Etats-Unis (autour de 17%) ; (ii) la distribution des changements de prix présente une dispersion importante; (iii) les fréquences de hausses et de baisses de prix contribuent beaucoup aux variations d'inflation et les hausses de prix sont plus fréquentes en Janvier même après avoir exclus les soldes; (iv) les soldes contribuent significativement à la volatilité de l'inflation mais sont moins sensibles aux fluctuations macroéconomiques que les autres changements de prix ; (v) pendant la Grande Récession, les caractéristiques de l'ajustement des prix ont été peu modifiées

Price setting in the euro area : some stylised facts from individual producer price data

This paper documents producer price setting in 6 countries of the euro area: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Portugal. It collects evidence from available studies on each of those countries and also provides new evidence. These studies use monthly producer price data. The following five stylised facts emerge consistently across countries. First, producer prices change infrequently: each month around 21% of prices change. Second, there is substantial cross-sector heterogeneity in the frequency of price changes: prices change very often in the energy sector, less often in food and intermediate goods and least often in non-durable non- food and durable goods. Third, countries have a similar ranking of industries in terms of frequency of price changes. Fourth, there is no evidence of downward nominal rigidity: price changes are for about 45% decreases and 55% increases. Fifth, price changes are sizeable compared to the inflation rate. The paper also examines the factors driving producer price changes. It finds that costs structure, competition, seasonality, inflation and attractive pricing all play a role in driving producer price changes. In addition producer prices tend to be more flexible than consumer prices.Price-setting, producer prices